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State Bar of Georgia Honors Attorney Cary King for Work with Military Legal Assistance Program

Atlanta – Cary S. King, senior attorney with Jacobs & King LLC in Atlanta, received the Marshall-Tuttle Award, presented by the State Bar of Georgia during its Midyear Meeting on Jan. 12 in recognition of his outstanding support of the Bar’s Military Legal Assistance Program. The program makes available legal services to active duty military personnel, National Guard members, reservists and veterans on a pro bono or reduced fee-basis. King, himself a combat veteran, was cited for having provided extraordinary and outstanding legal services over the past 12 years to hundreds of military veterans at the VA Medical Center in Decatur on a variety of civil and criminal law issues including, among others, family law, consumer law, landlord tenant matters, employment law and military discharge characterizations.

King, who previously was senior partner with the firm of Slater & King for 17 years and prior to that was a partner with the firm of Shuster, King & King for 11 years, has handled significant trial litigation including many high profile civil matters in state and federal courts over the years. He is a member of the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Georgia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

An Atlanta native, King and his wife, Sherry King, are both 1959 graduates of Henry Grady High School. They have five children and six grandchildren. He graduated in 1963 from Georgia State University with a B.A. degree and in 1983 from John Marshall Law School. He also attended graduate school at Georgia State University and at the University of Alabama at Huntsville.

Following his undergraduate studies including the ROTC program, King was commissioned as a Regular Army officer under the Distinguished Military Graduate Program. He served almost seven years on active duty and then served in the National Guard and Army Reserves, retiring in 1987 after 24 total years of service including overseas tours of duty in Germany and in Vietnam. In Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in 1967 and 1968, he served with the 1st Infantry Division supervising and conducting search and seal operations and commanded both a field artillery battery and a headquarters battery.
During his military service and among other personal decorations, King was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge, five Bronze Star Medals (two with “V” device for valor), the Purple Heart Medal, two Air Medals, two Army Commendation Medals (one with “V” device), the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm, the Air Crewman’s Badge and three Meritorious Unit Citations.

Among other charitable and civic organizations, King is a former member of the DeKalb County Veterans Advisory Committee, former president and chairman of the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association and a board member of the Crohn’s & Coliits Foundation. He is a member of the USO and is a regular greeter of service members arriving and departing at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. He is also one of the founders of the pro bono clinic at the VA Medical Center, which has provided legal assistance to hundreds of service members and veterans on a variety of civil and criminal law matters.

In making the presentation of the Marshall-Tuttle Award, Lynn Adam and Eric Ballinger, co-chairs of the Military Legal Assistance Program Committee, said, “Cary King’s experience and empathy truly molded him into a servant for those who serve us.”

For his efforts, King received the Marshall-Tuttle Award, which was named in honor and memory of Army Cpl. Evan Andrew Marshall, a soldier from Athens, Ga., who was killed in action in Iraq in 2008, and in honor and memory of U.S. Circuit Judge Elbert Parr Tuttle. Tuttle was in the Army for 30 years, was a founding partner of the Atlanta law firm of Sutherland Asbill and served as a federal judge for 43 years. He also provided pro bono legal services to many people, including John Johnson, a young Marine. In 1938, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Johnson v. Zerbst that counsel must be provided for all defendants in federal criminal trials who cannot afford to hire their own attorneys. The State Bar determined that these two men, Evan Marshall and Elbert Tuttle, each contributed mightily to the state of Georgia and the nation and to the ideal of service and sacrifice for the public good.

Since the Military Legal Assistance Program began three years ago, help has been provided to more than 900 military service members and veterans throughout Georgia. Through its Continuing Legal Education programs, the Bar has also provided training for more than 500 lawyers seeking accreditation to practice before the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Currently in Georgia, more than 115,000 men and women are on active duty or serve in the National Guard or Reserves, and more than 774,000 veterans have chosen to live in Georgia.